If there were a service offering Motion capture for a low cost would you be interested?

If it were easy to use. Ie.. you send an AVI of you acting out some moves and you get sent back a Motion capture file (BVH) of the same thing ( as close an interpretation as possible)

If so, what would you be prepared to pay for this?

EDIT.. ignore the '£' symbols.. it's all meant to be in dollars

pooby

04-26-2007, 08:13 AM

bear in mind.. If all the votes are the lowest figure, it might not be feasible to do so vote for what you really would be prepared to pay, not what you would like Ideally.. Ideally, it would be free.

pooby

04-26-2007, 09:28 AM

For those that arent familiar with BVH files, they are like a skeleton that you import into LW containing the motion captured movement.
You don't need a plugin for that. It's in native LW.
It is possible to re-target the motion to another rig, by converting the movment data to IK goals..

heres a free BVH to test.. It's me pushing things about. It's the raw uncleaned data.
(if you have a bone selected with motion paths on, it can get slow so I suggest turning it off.)

pooby

04-26-2007, 09:50 AM

It's difficult to work out pricing, because if one person wanted 30 seconds, it would become quite expensive even at the lowest cost.
However, if someone only wanted 2 seconds, it would hardly be worth setting it up for, so you'd have to charge more.

So I imagine that there would be a sliding scale.

At the moment I just want to know if there is any demand for it as a concept at all..

Darth Mole

04-26-2007, 10:32 AM

Looking to invest in a Mo-Cap set-up by any chance?

pooby

04-26-2007, 10:54 AM

I just did.

Wonderpup

04-26-2007, 02:53 PM

I'm a one man band here, so I may not be who you're aiming to supply, but I can imagine this being usefull if a client wanted a very specific and difficult move that would take a long time to set up 'manualy'. But isn't the equimpment only part of the equation here?- the real problem might be getting hold of the actors who could deliver say a convincing kung fu move, or a complex gymnastic routine- that could add to the cost if you needed specialist actions.

You might do better offering a library of presets, walks, runs, ect aimed at lightwave users, rather than a bespoke service that could get really complex to deliver. Or does this already exist?

pooby

04-26-2007, 03:07 PM

This would be aimed at people who just want some realistic motion to apply to their rigs.
Obviously if you wanted Kung Fu, or something really complex, I couldn't supply that without charging a fortune, but much of the time, you might just want a specific piece of acting, or a specific walk, turn, then run in a certain direction.. Or a jump that lands in a certain stance etc etc.

Or say you have made a model of a human, and you want to do a lip synch test for a reel. you could video yourself doing it, then send the clip.
I would then get someone to examine and recreate your clip so that it matches the body movement in the clip.. then you could put the movement onto your rig, so the lip synch and you'd end up with a slick looking piece of performance capture.
It's aimed as much at the one man band as anyone else.

Presets are a good idea too, but I imagine there are loads of BVH libraries already.

hrgiger

04-26-2007, 07:03 PM

Wow, is it really that expensive to buy bvh files? I've never priced them before but even $10 a second seems expensive, especially since I am a one man band. I suppose if a project were really important enough, it may be reasonable but it wouldn't be an every day thing. I voted for the last one but not because I wouldn't be interested, it just seems pricey but I imagine these things are expensive.

kfinla

04-26-2007, 08:03 PM

Could a database of bvh files be a possible route.. you could sell the same same BVH multiple times, keep costs down, take suggestionss.. just an idea.. kinda like the 3d.sk of motion data..

kfinla

04-26-2007, 08:12 PM

For me personally i'd pay for motion data of animals but perhaps thats a crazy proposition, as even a household cat or dog could be difficult to work with..

DogBoy

04-27-2007, 09:13 AM

I think I'd be happy at $30-40, but I'd never need more than 6-8 seconds of movement.

If this were a goer, would it be possible to bring down an actor to Bristol if the moves needed a particular skill? If so, would there be much of a premium on it?

cresshead

04-27-2007, 09:35 AM

sounds a good idea pooby, what type of mo cap can you offer?
is it an exoskeleton or magnetic or reflective marker?

also do/will you offer facial motion capture in future?

http://www.animazoo.com/services/customBVH.htm offer a custom service
with a minimum £500 but that can get you upto 5 mins of motion capture...they do it over the net by sending a avi then their actor acts out the motion and sends you back a bvh.

maybe offer something like that as well as a 'per second' price for custom bvh motions.

and also you could create a lib too...i've been buying motion capture files from:-
http://www.es3d.com/
and
http://www.e-motek.com/entertainment/stockmoves/index.html

so somthing like what they have setup seems a good idea...say you pay for an hour of your time...recieving avi and timing/direction notes rehersal of actor and 3 takes you could have 1-5mins of possible useful motions in an hour maybe
depending on the movments involved.

i priced up motion capture for a domestic cat around xmas and it was £1800 plus vat for half a day in the studio and a trained cat and handler.

Pooby, I would be extremely surprised if you could offer mocap for as cheap as you are thinking.

For everyone not in the know, mocap is expensive not because its captured humans (thats the byproduct) Its because of the time it takes to get from point a to point b. There are also other factors that effect pricing. Hiring actors or buying stuff for props or sets costs money. Not to mention paying for the actual system. They dont grown on trees after all :)

The process is something like this. First you set up and calibrate the system. This occurs at start up and later again in the day if someone loses a marker. They fall off all the time. You gotta have an actor(s), and perhaps they need to use the bathroom at some point. If you are shooting for the whole day, theres a recalibration when they come back from using the facilities. If you bump a camera or tripod (if you are using tripods) you need to recalibrate. If someone runs into the wall the camera is attached to, you need to recalibrate. Depending on the system, it can take up to a half hour to get back up an running. Newer systems are able to calibrate faster these days. My experience is with a Vicon 8i, 8 camera system. It was about 15 min of downtime between recalibrations.

Then... once you get the mocap data captured, someone has to sit in front of the computer and play 3d connect the dots for a few frames, telling the computer whats a human and how they are laid out. Then you process the data.

After that, you fill in any gaps in the data where occlusion occured, or if you were capturing anything where the character was sitting or lying on the floor, you need to recreate the data alltogether (by hand for the most part, however some of it is done automatically) using the other markers as reference points.

On top of all that perhaps the data is noisy. You need to go back through the entire motion marker by marker and make sure its acceptable.

Once you do all that you need to export it to something that can attach the data to a working skeleton, in the past I used motionbuilder to retarget the data, and that means setting up in motionbuilder the linking between your data and your skeleton along with the motionbuilder rig.

From there you process it a bit more and then you export it out as a fbx file or otherwise. Then you can import it into the app of your choice.

My point is this, even if you are good at this sort of thing, it isnt something you can turn around and knock out in 15 min. I'm not trying to question Pooby's skill either. Im just letting everyone know how much work is involved. Mocap is an all day sort of thing

Even if hes got the most current state of the art vicon system or otherwise, while there may be some time saving shortcuts, it still takes plenty of time. So think about what you all get paid per hour to do what you do, then think about how long it takes to get to the end product with mocap data. I'd say 2-4 hours from point a to b if you have a pipeline in place using a descent system. Oh and don't forget to throw profit on top of that (I assume Pooby is into making money :) ).

I think the only 10 dollar motions you will be seeing from Pooby are stock motions that were created for the sole purpose of selling to the masses. Such as runs, walks and jumps.

Qslugs

04-27-2007, 10:35 AM

What system are you using there?

cresshead

04-27-2007, 11:13 AM

exactly!....
all your points a mute if your using a exoskeleton system like gypsy 5...
1.set up takes 5mins to put on..20mins to calibrate...
2..no markers will fall off...there are non!
3.no tipods t knockover
4.no 'noise'

surpose we'd like to know what capture type your using then!

http://www.animazoo.com/grafix/product_images/gypsygyro_standing.jpg

http://www.animazoo.com/grafix/product_images/gypsy5_lying_down.jpg

http://www.metamotion.com/mocap/p_glove16.jpg

pooby

04-27-2007, 11:21 AM

It's a Gyro system.. no markers, you literally put the suit on which takes about 15 mins then hit a key to record, then move about, press stop and you have a BVH file..
Its new technology. The data is very clean indeed. Almost no noise.
The only problems you get are the occasional jump of the base translation due to the nature of the technology, but it's very quick to fix.

I am thinking maybe about having a once-weekly session to keep costs down.
so I wouldn't have to set up per order.
doing this, maybe there could be a minimum of about $ 150 for 10 secs of Mo-cap. But it would really depend on the demand.

By the way. I have a successful system for retargetting the BVH onto an IK rig in LW. Even if it has different proportions

Wow, is it really that expensive to buy bvh files? I've never priced them before but even $10 a second seems expensive, especially since I am a one man band. I suppose if a project were really important enough, it may be reasonable but it wouldn't be an every day thing. I voted for the last one but not because I wouldn't be interested, it just seems pricey but I imagine these things are expensive.

Agree with hrgiger. This sounds fantastic but from my POV as another Lightwaving one man band, even $10 per second would be expensive ($600 per minute) unless there was a discount for longer sequences. Keep us posted on developments :)

Qslugs

04-27-2007, 01:36 PM

2 questions

Whats the working volume of the system, is it unlimited?

Hows the foot slide? I do realize that foot slide is easily fixable in post if its present. I'm still curious if the feet are rock solid or not.

Good to hear mocap isnt as laborious as it use to be. I assume the only down side with that system is the number of people you can capture. As in limited to the number of suits you own = actual number of actors in volume.

tyrot

04-27-2007, 02:20 PM

dear pooby

how about making packages for selling? Lets say 50 movements or 25 movements and you will sell this to community...

But please be aware that the Mocap artists are not gay...I hate Gay Mocap artists and their enormously gay movements. I have seen couple of mocap libraries, they are immensely useful, when you have a transexual character..!

best

cresshead

04-27-2007, 03:08 PM

Agree with hrgiger. This sounds fantastic but from my POV as another Lightwaving one man band, even $10 per second would be expensive ($600 per minute) unless there was a discount for longer sequences. Keep us posted on developments :)

well £1800 plus vat [$3600 pus 17.5%] for 30 seconds is my last quote for custom mo cap so this is a bargin!...one 12th the price...and pooby said around $150 for 10 seconds which is a good option for a scene ...of course if your looking at mo cap from a 'personal project' then custom moves will cost
you some cash any which way be they from a lib of mocaps or a custom to order mocap...but you should always offset that by how much time you'd ''spend'' hand animating or rotoscoping from video reference...

if your client wants it for a project then he'll pay anyhow so no big deal.

i'd sooner have an affordable option to have custom motioncaptures as well as a growing lib of bvh files to use if possible.

cresshead

04-27-2007, 03:12 PM

2 questions

Whats the working volume of the system, is it unlimited?

Hows the foot slide? I do realize that foot slide is easily fixable in post if its present. I'm still curious if the feet are rock solid or not.

Good to hear mocap isnt as laborious as it use to be. I assume the only down side with that system is the number of people you can capture. As in limited to the number of suits you own = actual number of actors in volume.

the working volume [acting area] for those systems is HUGE...like 500m!
re footslide..not too difficult to fix with software like motion builder or with max just exract to footsteps and data thin the motion capture on import.

bobakabob

04-27-2007, 03:22 PM

well £1800 plus vat [$3600 pus 17.5%] for 30 seconds is my last quote for custom mo cap so this is a bargin!...one 12th the price...and pooby said around $150 for 10 seconds which is a good option for a scene ...of course if your looking at mo cap from a 'personal project' then custom moves will cost
you some cash any which way be they from a lib of mocaps or a custom to order mocap...but you should always offset that by how much time you'd ''spend'' hand animating or rotoscoping from video reference...

if your client wants it for a project then he'll pay anyhow so no big deal.

i'd sooner have an affordable option to have custom motioncaptures as well as a growing lib of bvh files to use if possible.

Yes, relative to other rates out there, no contest. It would be a great service to have available. Obviously Pooby needs to make it financially viable. If he can pitch his rates to accomodate the small workshops / freelancers / onemanbands it would undercut the competition and surely create a surge of interest.

DiedonD

04-28-2007, 07:43 AM

Ive read about motion capture prior to buying LW. Its Understanding Motion Capture by Alberto Menache. I was thinking of speeding up aniamtion at the time even, it was one of the things that he disprooves actually.
The majority of the book explains that it should be carefully considered before buying. He lines up alot of movies including Godzilla that invested on MoCap and later on, while it started tweaking things with IK here and there, they ended up using IK for the whole thing in the end nevertheless.
What I found out later was that the Context of the character is of greatly importance. How real your character really is meant to be? Micky mouse is defintely out of the picture for instance. No human beeing can impressively act like him. In the end you conclude that MoCap is for photorealistic moves with normal preparation, followup, anticpitance and the such. And of course not all characters are meant to be photoreal.
So I didnt buy it then because I didnt need it to, but even 10$ a second sounds way too much. A better investment would be to buy the thing, thus you'll cover future possible projects that may want even more special photorealistic moves.

To put matters short, its way too pricy and unsuitable for me at the moment. Unless they'll add an automatic "Toony mover" slider, where you can slide from 0 to 100% and the characters moves would change from real to toony accordingly. And even then I would rather buy the equioment isntead.

Edbittner

04-28-2007, 08:56 AM

I wouldn't pay while there are lots of sites that offer bvh and other motion capture sets already on the net. Sorry. This one came up first on my search:

http://www.charactermotion.com/products/motion_capture/index.html
E.

cresshead

04-28-2007, 08:59 AM

pooby's mo cap suit costs around £40,000...or $80,000....i'd buy one too if i had money spewing from all my pockets constantly!....but i don't:cry:

so libraries, and custom services is all i can afford right now!
...maybe that $5000 mo cap suiteat a later date...though they admit it's still not
as good as th gypsy solution.

cresshead

04-28-2007, 09:07 AM

I wouldn't pay while there are lots of sites that offer bvh and other motion capture sets already on the net. Sorry. This one came up first on my search:

http://www.charactermotion.com/products/motion_capture/index.html
E.

i think your possibly missing pooby's point here...those are canned mo cap lib's...which are wonderful and fantastic and relativly cheap...but you get what your given if they don't have what you want/need your sc**wed!....time to hand animate!

pooby is tentativly offering a custom motion capture service where you can dictate/direct a motion you require as such he's the cheapest i've seen anywhere on planet earth to date.

cresshead

04-28-2007, 09:22 AM

i would think that once he's had the mocap studio running for a while he may also offer motion capture files in a lib format like credo, motek etc...but those companies don't offer custom motion captures

in addition i'd also agreee that motion captue is NOT for all character types...once i put a mo cap onto a cartoon character and the result looked really odd...more like a disney theme park real person in a cartoon costume..
so yeah cartoon animation really suits HAND keyed animation or you'll need and actor to ACT like a cartoon character....which is where a custom mo cap service may help you out as all the lib i have are ''realistic'':D

cresshead

04-28-2007, 09:37 AM

also not to take the thread over but having looked at soe of the sample files from credo i don't think their of great quality either..
http://www.charactermotion.com/products/motion_capture/motionviewer.html

most of the characters seem to be leaning forward constantly, looks like their mo-capture sessions were less than stella for realism...you'd need to fix the center of gravity in alot of them, which isn't easy.

pooby

04-28-2007, 10:18 AM

If someone wants to post an avi , I'll do you an example of what you'll get. Preferably some acting not KUNG FU !!

cresshead

04-28-2007, 11:05 AM

pooby, quick question about mo cap in lw...i've read it's do-able but have yet to see a quick vid on 'just how' you'd retarget a bvh bone animation onto 'your character' in lightwave...i've asked about this numerous times since 1999 and have yet to see anyone step up and show how simple/hard it is...most people in the past simply say load it into motion builder...yeah right!...err no!

that's why i use 3dsmax for character animtion...load...done.

anychance of a vid?....i know your a really busy chap so no probs if not.

pooby

04-28-2007, 11:48 AM

It's not straightforward, but you can use follower to re-map the motion from points on the mocap rig to IK goals on your target rig.

Or you just map them to nulls and parent IK goals to the nulls, so you can use that to animate an offset to the mocap.. So, if you wanted the character reaching a bit higher or something, it's pretty easy to do.

It takes a bit of setup, but it's not hard.

I'll send a scene sometime soon and If I end up doing this Mocap service, I'll make a vid tutorial or something.
I'm not absolutely-definately going to do this service. I'm just seeing if there's interest, and might do a trial period first to see if it works.

Qslugs

04-28-2007, 12:17 PM

You should advertise your services on sites like gamasutra.

bobakabob

04-28-2007, 05:49 PM

It's not straightforward, but you can use follower to re-map the motion from points on the mocap rig to IK goals on your target rig.

Or you just map them to nulls and parent IK goals to the nulls, so you can use that to animate an offset to the mocap.. So, if you wanted the character reaching a bit higher or something, it's pretty easy to do.

It takes a bit of setup, but it's not hard.

I'll send a scene sometime soon and If I end up doing this Mocap service, I'll make a vid tutorial or something.
I'm not absolutely-definately going to do this service. I'm just seeing if there's interest, and might do a trial period first to see if it works.

Pooby,
Hope this works out... It would be awesome to have a competitively priced customised mocap facility available. How do you forsee clients making their requests... via a storyboard fomat of some kind?

Dirk

04-29-2007, 02:53 AM

Pooby, maybe You should offer "bundles". Say 20 - 30 moves from a selfmade library (which are sold non-exclusive) plus X seconds mocap. I think there's a lot of mocap made and used for games, and a lot of the game studios do not have big money, but the moves needed are 90% the same most of the time.

colkai

04-29-2007, 03:07 AM

It's not straightforward, but you can use follower to re-map the motion from points on the mocap rig to IK goals on your target rig.

Or you just map them to nulls and parent IK goals to the nulls, so you can use that to animate an offset to the mocap.. So, if you wanted the character reaching a bit higher or something, it's pretty easy to do.

It takes a bit of setup, but it's not hard.

I think something like this would be very useful for a lot of folks. :)

cresshead

04-29-2007, 03:00 PM

:agree:
if there was a de facto tutorial on 'how to use motion capture in lightwave' to apply a mo cap bvh to a character, then as they say..

build it and they will use it!:D

this would also boost the number of artist having animated characters too in lightwave..and so boost the NEED for new character animation tools for rigging and non linear editing

:lwicon:

bobakabob

04-29-2007, 04:24 PM

:agree:
if there was a de facto tutorial on 'how to use motion capture in lightwave' to apply a mo cap bvh to a character, then as they say..

build it and they will use it!:D

this would also boost the number of artist having animated characters too in lightwave..and so boost the NEED for new character animation tools for rigging and non linear editing

:lwicon:

It's true there's a dearth of good mocap tutorials and I've thought of writing one myself though I'm no expert animator. Here's a quick step by step guide I wrote for a discussion on Spinquad recently. Hope it's useful.

Check out my website http://www.johnnyrem.com and you'll find an animation called Dancing Aliens (still a wip!). It was made importing a bvh file into Lightwave for the male character. The female alien in the sequence is manually animated to see if I could learn something from the mocap.

Some pointers from what I remember:

1. Prepare your character in Modeler in a T pose. Use weight maps to stop the character exploding once the mocap starts but keep them simple. eg head, body, arm left, arm right, leg left, leg right. You may need to weight the feet and hands depending on levels of distortion.

2. Import the bvh mocap skeleton into Layout. Most bvh files begin with a T pose on frame 0 - though not always. You'll have to switch off the bones and resize and position them to fit your character. Check the manual for the correct way to do this and keyframe all the bones in rest position on frame 0.

3. Edit the mocap data. It's crucial to ensure that the relative position and size of the bones stay the same after your editing, so after frame 0 they dont all revert back to their original form. To do this you need to open the Graph Editor and isolate the xyz position and size coordinates of the bones. Ignore the root bone in this exercise as its movements in xyz determine the movement of the whole character. Delete all keyframes for just the size and xyz parameters for all other bones after frame 0 so they're flatlining in the graph. Leave rotations alone! When you've done this test the mocap to see that your edited skeleton doesn't resize and turn into Mr Fantastic.

4. Add your character to Layout: The root bone of your imported bvh rig - usually the base of the spine or pelvis - should be parented to a null. You need to replace/ swap out this null with your LW character.

5. Check all your bones are associated with appropriate weightmaps. Easy to get this bit wrong.

6. Activate the bones and pray :D

7. Run the mocap and edit. There are bound to be weird distortions e.g twisted ankles / wrists / shoulders so be prepared to spend some time fine tuning the bone positions. You could introduce some hold bones to add even more stability to the rig.

Apologies if I've missed anything.

bobakabob

04-29-2007, 04:33 PM

PS Cresshead, I'm sure I've seen you use bvh mocap on these forums...:)

cresshead

04-29-2007, 04:39 PM

i havn't found any video tutorials on using motion capture in lightwave.

re motion capture and me>...they'd ve 3dsmax motion captures with character studio and would be in reference to a lightwave character i built.

like this one>
http://www.cresshead.com/wip/anime_dance_test.gifhttp://www.cresshead.com/wip/anime_lateral_test.gif

written tutorial are always open to misinterpretation and missing steps...a video will always be the best way to ''show'' anything.

hey...$25 via paypal to anyone who makes a good a step by step video tutorial on using motion capture....
have i got your attention now!

...only one video...no a liecence to print money!

cresshead

04-29-2007, 04:44 PM

make that ''someone'' not anyone!.....
and using lightwave 9.2 and a bvh files....no messiah or point oven or exrtra plugins...or motion builder!

cresshead

04-29-2007, 06:39 PM

well tried your tutorial and my room was like a scene out of the film glengarry glen ross....some many swearwords i've not uttered for many a week!

LightWuv

04-29-2007, 07:03 PM

Good luck with this, Pooby.

This might be tangential, but in case it's relevant at all: I dance (b-boyin', popping) and do martial arts. I'd pay for getting my own routines on bvh (once I've saved up a couple more years). I voted $30 for the service as you describe it, but I suspect getting to be the actor would be a lot more expensive, if at all possible... not to mention, what if the suit can't do airchairs and I have to buy you a new one... :eek:

Wuv

cresshead

04-29-2007, 07:11 PM

okay...got ''somthing'' to work!:D ...finally!

no weightmaps or anything...just wanted the mesh to basically follow
and sorta work!

''never give up never surrender!'' :hey:

also bvh files [bones etc] look very different from different mo cap to mocap so
make it a bit time consuming...but hey after being a lw user for so long i finally
gota mocap working on a mesh!....:beerchug:

not pretty but now i have a basis to think about using mo caps in lightwave!
:jam:

http://www.cresshead.com/wip/anime_lw_mocap_test.gif

bobakabob

04-30-2007, 05:08 AM

Cresshead, So was the 'tutorial' OK? Anthing need adding? Shoulders and neck seem especially prone to distortion so it's best to resort to weightmaps but they don't take long if you keep it simple.

Hope Pooby's plans come to fruition with a workable solution. It would be a dream to be able to customise moves. Working with mocap and combining it with manual animation is pretty straightforward in Lightwave... but you do need patience. Here are two clips made with some free mocap found on the web. Modelled and animated in Lightwave (ages ago!):

http://www.johnnyrem.com/angel_files/angel_gif_x.gif

http://www.johnnyrem.com/angel_files/angel_gif.gif

cresshead

04-30-2007, 05:43 AM

your text was a 'guide' but far too vague to be a step by step tutorial for people not conversant with bones, rigs, and resting, rotating and posing bones not to mention how to set weightmaps on your mesh and which bones in the bvh are right to set those bones to follow as their are gimbal bones and standard bones also there's many types of bvh bone setups that look totally different in the viewport so being able to ''read'' and understand what's what and therefore be able to use any bvh motion...i can sorta see now why there's no tutorial video as yet...the person who makes one needs to fully understand all of that and impart their knowledge in the video.

i'm looking for a video that holds your hand ALL the way thru...i have just about enough knowledge with bones to fill the gaps in and get something to work sorta, but many people [all my ex students for example] have very little experience with character animation in lightwave due to it's labourious
set up and so on in comparison to 3dsmax which they also were taught in college...i'd make a video myselfbut currently i'm not confident enough
that i'd be doing to 100% so that all the lightwavers that want to add bvh could do so with 100% gurantee results for them...i'll see if someone comes up and does the job but failing that,...yeah i'll have a bash!

pooby's set up using an ik rig that's ''driven'' from the bvh rig could be a far more robust way to animate with a motion capture but having never used follower in lightwave i'll have to let that one go for now.

bobakabob

04-30-2007, 06:05 AM

Pooby's set up using an ik rig that's ''driven'' from the bvh rig could be a far more robust way to animate with a motion capture but having never used follower in lightwave i'll have to let that one go for now.

This sounds like a great idea which would save time in having to laboriously rig characters from bvh files for individual scenes. It's also true that bvh files vary enormously in their rigs and many need a great deal of work in Graph Editor before they are usable.

pooby

04-30-2007, 06:11 AM

Don't be put off by things like follower. It's really easy to use. (Too simple really.. needs far more options)

All it does is.. Say you have one null rotating on the pitch, and you want another to do the same thing, you just put follower on the second null and tell it to follow null 1.
(Obviously, it works for ALL motion channels not just pitch)

I defy anyone not to understand how it works after 5 minutes of playing with it.